The Boy I Love

by Marion Husband

  ‘I’m not hungry. Look, sit down. There’s no hurry for any of that. Sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing today.’

  She sat down on the edge of the chair, feet and knees together, hands folded in her lap, making herself as neat and demure as possible to hide the awkwardness she felt. She promised herself that in a moment she would make her excuses and escape to the kitchen.

  He laughed self-consciously. ‘I don’t bite, Hetty.’

  She made to get up. ‘Mr Morgan, Mr Morgan told me I should see you get something to eat …’

  ‘Too many Mr Morgans, Hetty. It might be less confusing if you call me Mick, as you did at the dance. We had a good time, didn’t we? I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much.’

  ‘It was lovely.’

  ‘Have you kept your balloon?’

  ‘It’s shrivelled up quite a bit.’

  ‘I know the feeling.’

  Noticing her blush he looked at his cigarette. ‘Sorry. Always was hopeless in mixed company.’

  She smiled. ‘You’ve jam on your shirt.’

  ‘Oh?’ He frowned down at himself. ‘Blast it, so I have.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve no appetite? Filled up on bread and jam?’

  Picking at the stain he said. ‘Just the jam, actually.’ When she laughed in disbelief he said, ‘Don’t tell Pat. He thinks it’s decadent not to spread it on bread first. So,’ he cleared his throat. ‘Was the shop busy today?’

  ‘Mondays are quiet.’

  ‘Then he won’t want you to rush back?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  Patrick hadn’t said anything, only nodded curtly as she called goodbye, raising the meat axe to bring it down hard on a carcass. He’d been silent all morning. Earlier she’d dropped a tin tray on the tiled floor and its clatter made him jump so badly a woman in the queue had mouthed, ‘Nerves. They’re all bad with their nerves.’ The rest of the queue had nodded sagely.

  Hetty glanced at Mick. Nerves didn’t seem to affect him very much. She wondered how he had lost his legs, imagining the horror of it. Ashamed of her gruesome thoughts she said quickly, ‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, thank you. Father Greene made me some earlier. I get the feeling he only ever makes tea when he comes here. He seems so keen to do it I haven’t the heart to tell him I’m capable of boiling a kettle. Pat doesn’t like me to, of course. He worries I’ll scald myself reaching up.’

  ‘I’d worry, too.’

  He looked down at his cigarette, burnt almost to nothing between his fingers. Tossing it into the fire he said, ‘Don’t worry about me, Hetty. Waste of time. Now, tell me how you came to work for Pat.’

  ‘I fancied a change from Marshall’s.’

  ‘From sugar pigs to real pigs? I would have thought the sugar pigs were pleasanter.’

  ‘I like the shop.’

  ‘Do you?’ He lit another cigarette, frowning. ‘I hated it. Dad made me work there every minute I wasn’t at school, helping with the slaughtering out the back. Patrick and I were the only boys from Thorp Grammar who knew how to wield a meat axe.’ He looked at her through a grey screen of smoke. ‘As soon as I left school I joined the army to get away from it. Dad called me all the names he could think of. I told him I’d be a general. Shame he got himself killed before I was even a major – I would’ve liked to see his eyes pop one last time.’

  ‘Don’t you miss them?’

  ‘I miss my mother.’

  ‘I remember her. She was always so lady-like in her lovely clothes, so tall and elegant. I could never look like that.’

  ‘Yes you could.’ He held her gaze, just as he had at the dance. As she was about to look away he said, ‘I think you’re very pretty. And you looked so lovely at New Year. I was proud to be with you.’

  She blushed.

  After an awkward silence he cleared his throat. ‘You know, I’ve been stuck in this house for days. If Pat isn’t expecting you back at the shop perhaps we could go out? The park is just at the end of the road … we could take a turn around the duck pond.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know …’

  He grinned. ‘I look pale, don’t I? As though I need some fresh air? And Father Greene said I’d go blind reading so much.’

  ‘Did he?’

  He nodded solemnly. ‘Terrible blind. Now you don’t want that on your conscience, do you?’

  She stood up, taking her coat from the back of the chair. ‘Once round the pond then straight back.’

  Patrick locked the shop door, turning the sign to Closed. He’d had enough of customers, their grumbles and inane chatter, the way their fingers scrambled secretively in their purses like misers begrudging every dirty penny. The last one had wanted three sausages. Three bloody sausages. Her hands had been filthy.

  He took the day’s takings from the till and walked along the High Street to the bank where the grey-faced little snob of a clerk counted the pennies and half pennies as though they stank. Patrick stared at him, willing him to say a wrong word as the queue shuffled impatiently behind him. He noticed that the bag of copper had speckled the counter with grains of sawdust. He smiled to himself, gratified.

  As the clerk weighed the coin he found himself thinking of Paul, remembering the first patrol they went on together. His beautiful face had been daubed with mud and all badges, all indications of rank, stripped from his tunic. Snipers shot at officers first. Paul had smiled at him encouragingly and he remembered having to look away. Lust, on top of such fear, was too much. He wouldn’t look at him directly again until they were safely back.

  Hawkins always sent Paul on these patrols because Jenkins was such a useless little get. Patrick had suggested once he would go alone with one of the corporals, no need to risk an officer. The man laughed his terrible, braying laugh. It was as if he believed Paul enjoyed these expeditions into no-man’s-land.

  The clerk was saying, ‘Sign this, please.’

  A slip of paper was pushed under the grille. Patrick signed it absently, thinking of Paul’s slow, practised squirming through the ruts and furrows, how he kept his face close to the mustard-gas stink of churned earth. He had wanted to protect his body with his own as they crawled, covering his full length. He screwed his eyes closed.

  Shoving the empty cloth bag under the grille, the clerk said pointedly, ‘Good day, Mr Morgan.’

  Patrick started, opening his eyes. He glanced over his shoulder and the next in line glared at him. Bundling the bag up he pushed it into his pocket and walked out.

  Patrick wandered the maze of narrow alleys that ran off the High Street and were lined with second-hand bookshops and pawnbrokers and poky, beer-only pubs. Stopping outside a junk shop he gazed through its grimy window. Amongst the battered furniture and bric-a-brac a hollow elephant’s foot bristled with crutches. Next to it stood a wheelchair, a luggage label displaying its price. He wondered what had become of its owner and found himself staring at the suggestion of an indent on the chair’s seat, as though whoever it was had only recently been lifted from it. He shuddered.

  He walked on until he came to the high walls embedded with shards of glass that shielded Marshall’s sugar factory from sweet-toothed burglars. The factory backed on to the railway line. He could hear the trains rumbling their way west to Darlington or north to Newcastle. If it weren’t for Mick he would steal a ride; he would lose himself in a larger place than Thorp, if it weren’t for Mick.

  He remembered the army doctor watching him as he signed Mick’s discharge papers, his cool, condescending voice as he said, ‘I hope you understand the enormity of what you’re taking on.’ This dapper little colonel in his pristine white coat and polished riding boots, and himself, a rough, awkward sergeant who imagined he could look after such a severely disabled man. Smiling the doctor said, ‘Major Morgan isn’t the easiest patient.’ He should’ve told him to stick his stethoscope up his arse.

  A train whistle screamed. Patrick stopped on the embankment a little past the factor
y and watched the train speed north into a tunnel. He’d been to Newcastle once during leave in the middle of the war. He remembered liking its vastness, nothing like the pitiful villages of France and Belgium, or the closed-in narrowness of Thorp. Imagining himself living and working there, he’d strolled along its streets. Girls had smiled at him. He must have looked happy, he supposed.

  He walked on towards Thorp Station. Cheap cups of tea could be had from the station buffet where Bath buns sweated under their glass domes and a coal fire burned in an ornate grate. The buns were soft and sugary and delicious. Decisively, he crossed the street and bought a platform ticket from the station’s front office.

  Leaning into the doorway of the classroom Adam said, ‘Well, you look the part, at least.’

  Paul turned to him from wiping the blackboard. ‘Looks are deceptive.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Adam came in and perched on the edge of his desk. ‘Bad day?’

  Placing the blackboard duster down Paul said, ‘I got through it. I don’t think I taught them very much but at least there wasn’t a riot.’

  ‘Did you expect there to be?’

  ‘I keep expecting them to spot what a weakling I am.’

  ‘You’re not weak.’

  ‘Aren’t I?’ Wearily he said, ‘Are you going home? I’ll walk back with you.’

  ‘I was thinking we could …’ Adam laughed awkwardly. ‘You know … if she’s not expecting you I could squeeze you in before Henderson arrives for his Latin tuition …’

  ‘I’m tired, Adam. All I want to do is crawl home, eat and go to bed.’

  Adam followed him out of the classroom. As they walked along the corridor he said, ‘How about after supper, after Henderson?’

  ‘Not tonight, Adam.’

  ‘It’s been a while, that’s all.’

  ‘Less than a week.’ Paul looked at him. ‘I don’t want Margot to become suspicious.’

  ‘Why should she? We’re friends, aren’t we?’

  They walked out of the school and into the yard. Boys still milled about. A football rolled at Paul’s feet and he kicked it back in a curving arc. Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘Impressive. Tell the boys you were a football player and all your worries will be over.’

  Paul frowned at him, knowing from the brittle edge to his voice the mood Adam was slipping into. ‘I’m sorry if you’re disappointed.’

  ‘Disappointed! Don’t flatter yourself.’

  They walked almost to Tanner Street without speaking. Finally Adam said, ‘I suppose she’ll be waiting with a meal on the table, little house all spic and span.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Oh? She looks like the domesticated type to me. So, will you have to fry yourself an egg, or something? Christ, if I had a wife …’

  They stopped outside Paul’s door. Hesitantly Paul said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Adam ignored him and went on walking towards his own house five doors away.

  There were no Bath buns, just a few rock cakes, yellow as sulphur and studded with dead-fly raisins. Patrick carried his cup of tea to a table by the window, rubbing a view-hole in the condensation to look out at the platform. Two sailors were waiting, their huge kit bags lolling at their feet. He watched them, jealous of the easy way they stood and talked together.

  He had never been easy around other men, only Mick, and Mick didn’t count.

  After he had signed the papers in the doctor-colonel’s office, a nurse had showed him along a corridor. He remembered glancing inside the open doors of the first ward he passed, catching a glimpse of five or so men playing cards around a table. All of them were double amputees, like Mick. All of them turned to look at him as he passed, defiantly dismissive of visitors with legs.

  When the nurse left them alone together Mick said, ‘Have you come to take me home?’

  Patrick nodded. He sat down beside the cumbersome, institutional wheelchair that took up too much space in the bare little room deemed suitable for visitors. They hadn’t seen each other for two years. Mick reached out and touched his face, sweeping his thumb under his eye.

  ‘Don’t cry, Patty. I’m all right.’

  ‘I felt it, when you were wounded, the pain …’

  ‘No.’ Mick leaned closer. Taking his hand he ducked his head to look up into his downcast face. ‘You only think you did, afterwards, when you found out. The shock … it must have been the shock.’

  ‘It was terrible.’

  Mick smiled slightly. ‘They gave me morphine so quickly, and then the doctors put me to sleep … the pain was in your head, Pat. It wasn’t real.’

  ‘I thought I was going to die.’

  Mick sat back in his chair. ‘I’m so sorry, Patty. I tried not to think of you. I couldn’t help it.’

  The sailors climbed aboard their train. His tea had gone cold but he drank it anyway. Lighting a cigarette he thought of Paul again, idle, unfocused thoughts: Paul in dress uniform or in black tie and dinner jacket, a doll to dress up as the fancy took him; Paul as bridegroom, a yellow rose in his buttonhole. He saw again the girl on his arm and fought against the sudden surge of jealousy.

  The tea finished, he walked out on to the platform. Suspended on a chain outside the waiting room a large clock face showed five o’clock. Patrick watched as the minute hand jerked past the Roman numeral twelve. He looked along the platform, anxious now even as his cock stirred in anticipation. Taking a deep breath he walked purposely towards the public toilets.

  The man said, ‘Not here.’

  Boldly as he dared Patrick said, ‘Where, then?’

  ‘Follow me.’ The man turned away from him. ‘It’s not far.’

  He followed him out of the station toilets, keeping a few steps behind. They walked through the dark back streets, the man’s furtiveness acting like a magnet, drawing him along. He didn’t once look back. He’s a fool, Patrick thought. Only a bloody fool would put himself in such danger.

  The man pushed open a back yard gate and beckoned him inside. As soon as Patrick was in the yard the man shut the gate quickly, and hurried to unlock the door into the house. Even then he didn’t stop. Patrick saw only a brief glimpse of a chaotic kitchen, pans in the sink and on the stove, their contents left to congeal. He breathed through his mouth against the smell of cold grease and damp.

  The stairs creaked and he felt he should tiptoe to avoid the noisiest boards and that he should’ve taken off his shoes. He knew these poky terraced houses – the neighbours could hear a dog fart through the walls. At the top of the stairs the man glanced at him before pushing open the bedroom door. He went at once to the bedside table, picked up a photograph frame, and slipped it under the bed. Patrick almost smiled; the man had a sweetheart, then. He didn’t want her pretty little face smiling out at him as he was fucked.

  Neither spoke, only undressed by the light of a full moon shining through threadbare curtains. Naked, they lay down on the bed. Patrick stared up at the cracks in the ceiling and gently rested his hand on the man’s thigh.

  ‘Maybe you should take your glasses off,’ he said.

  ‘I’m blind without them.’

  ‘Take them off.’

  He sighed, taking off his spectacles and placing them on the floor.

  Patrick rolled on to his side. Propping himself on his elbow he looked down at the skinny, hairless body beside him. The man smiled slightly and for the first time Patrick saw that he was handsome, perhaps even a little younger than himself. The smile stayed in his eyes, wry and intelligent, as though he understood the absurdity of their situation.

  Kneeling now, the man bowed his head and closed his mouth around his nipple, biting gently as Patrick drew a sharp, surprised breath. His hand moved down Patrick’s body, past his leaping, greedy cock, to rest on his thigh before pushing his legs apart. Lifting him slightly, he pushed a finger inside him, biting down harder on his nipple as Patrick arched his back and clenched his fingers into his hair. He would come too soon. Twisting away he sat up, leaning back o
n his elbows.

  The man looked up at him myopically. ‘Relax.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’re married, aren’t you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You’re being unfaithful to someone.’

  ‘No. There’s no one.’

  ‘Then relax.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  The man laughed. ‘Jesus.’ Taking Patrick’s hand he closed it around his cock. ‘I’ve been hard since I first saw you. You don’t have to apologise to me.’

  His penis was small, like a boy’s, its skin smooth and soft as fine kid. Patrick held it gently, his fingers reaching down to stroke his balls. The man groaned, a deep, sexy noise full of that knowing smile, and he kissed Patrick deeply, his hands moving over his body. After a while he broke away, sitting on his haunches beside him. ‘Ready now?’

  Patrick nodded.

  The man took one of the many pillows and placed it beneath his groin as he rolled on to his belly. He laughed a little. ‘Be careful. I’ve not seen many as big.’

  He’d imagined he would think of Paul. Instead he thought of nothing but the effort of pushing himself inside this stranger’s body. As he tried and failed the man reached back, taking hold of his cock to guide him. Finally he said matter-of-factly, ‘You’d best use some spit.’

  Patrick spat on his fingers, rubbing the spittle over his cock before trying again. The resistance gave. Beneath him the man cried out, bracing himself against Patrick’s thrusts. His head banged against the metal bars of the bedstead, which in turn banged against the wall. Patrick gritted his teeth, holding back from the release of orgasm, wanting to go deeper and deeper as hard and as fast as he could. Eventually the body beneath his lost its tension and collapsed down on to the mattress. Patrick’s own orgasm followed quickly.

  The man rolled on to his back, throwing his arm over his face and panting heavily. He laughed. ‘Christ.’